Everybody. I'm Connor that doug, and this is
the Bethel School District presents podcast. And oh,
boy, do we have a show for you
today. We're talking all about food. Doug is
gonna head over to a local food bank
to talk about a unique partnership they've entered
into with some of our culinary students and
all this talk about food got meat thinking,
Doug. What was your go to after school
snack. Everybody's got 1. I've wanna hear yours.
Well, that's a fun question. I haven't thought
about my middle and high school years coming
home flipping on the Tv. So I could
watch saved by the bell and having a
little. Wanna after school snack,
got out of pen and paper. Everybody's gonna
wanna write down this recipe. You take
4. After not 3, not 5, but 4
salty crackers, you pull out the jar peanut
butter, get a good covering of peanut butter
on there as high up as you want
it to go, and then you take a
craft single, you fold it in half and
fold it in half again to make 4
perfectly
square slices and you top your salty peanut
butter treat with that. You go sit in
front of the Tv and at the next
commercial, you come make 4 more.
Wow.
That's horrendous.
That's a crime against humanity,
peanut butter and cheese. No, Doug.
Who lets you do that? I learned it
from watching you, Dad. Old family recipe at
the boils, Hacienda.
Well, good golly. That makes me nauseous.
But I do share an affinity for saved
by the bell. So that saved you. Okay.
So that's all I've got going for me.
So how about you, Connor, what? Was your
after school snack go to treat. Well, after
my big hull lou about how awful yours
was, I'm gonna come off as a bit
of a hip here. Because mine is maybe
even worse, and I'm only slightly embarrassed to
admit that I would go home. I'd hit
the cupboard. I would grab a packet of
top ramen.
Would I grab a pot, fill it with
water and make some soup. No, sir, I
would not. What I would do is I
would smash up that bag of top ramen
pour the ms msg flavoring on top, shake
it up and eat it as a salty
snack. I have no words.
That didn't the top ramen cut your mouth
is made. It's. I feel like it'd be
very poke. It was worth the pain.
And I still... III
gave up on that. Weeks ago. I don't
ever get almost nice. No.
Well, these questionable answers aside, I'm actually gonna
take these with me and I'm gonna head
out to Buckle Washington where our story of
the day is going to take place. And,
Connor, I'm just gonna have to leave you
here. There's only 4 microphones, and I don't
have room for you. Table.
We are here at the market at Good
roots
Northwest in Buckle, and I am with a
table full of food system experts. We're gonna
go around the table, and all the 3
of you introduce yourselves and answer our question
of the day, your favorite after school snack
growing up, and we're gonna start to my
left, no stranger to the podcast, Scott Martin.
Well, good morning. I, am Scott Martin. I'm
the director at the Pierce County Skill Center.
Please don't tell my mother.
Growing up, I used to sneak the chocolate
chips and the peanut butter into the microwave
and then dip graham crackers in them. That's
where all the chocolate chips went, mom. Sorry.
I love it. Across the table for me.
I'm Stacy Ser. I'm the Ceo of Good
roots Northwest.
I'm kind of a not your typical food
bank, sort of food bank out here in
Rural East Pierce.
And
my favorite snack was putting marshmallows in the
microwave that just
spurred a memory for me, Scott
And making my own, popcorn balls. Okay. Making
your own popcorn balls. That's a little more
a lever than I got for sure, micro
marshmallows. I love a good support anytime of
the year, so that's a great after school
snack. And over to Kelly, Hi. My name
Kelly Fremont, and I'm the director of operations
here at Good roots, and I wish I
had something more sophisticated to say about an
after school snack.
Following these fancy pants with their microwave snacks,
but
I was the R crackers
Cheddar cheese kind of person, stop it. I
go to. Even now. Even now.
So we used to put peanut butter in
between... And we didn't use cheddar. We used
craft singles. Well, yeah. That's if it it
was a really lucky day at our house,
having crafting singles.
I love it. Well, before we get started
on what good roots does here in...
I'm gonna say our community, you all cover
200
square miles very much like the Bethel School
district. You're in a different part of the
county, though, but That's really exciting. Before we
do that, Kelly, your name might be familiar
to listeners. You used to work for the
Bethel school district. So what did you do
in Bethel? And what brought you here?
That's right. I did work in the Bethel
School District. I worked there for 4 years,
and I was an assistant director in the
secondary teaching and learning department.
When I was working Bethel, that was,
gosh that was my 20 fourth to
20 seventh.
I know the math sounded strange right there,
But,
years of, in the education field. Wow. So
I did quite a pivot. I know that
was the word of the
last few years, but I did quite a
pivot, and I decided to,
well I was lucky enough that there was
a spot to join here at Good roots
Northwest.
This is a community where I have been
living for the last 30 years.
So previously, I taught in a local school
district. Here and these are families that I've
known for a long, long time, and it
was my pleasure to be able to come
back to the community where I live
and to work with people who I have
known for a while, Stacey being 1 of
them, and being
of service here. So it was quite a
treat for me to
to change what I'd been doing. I love
to think about that I now have my
ad certificate. I have a national board certificate,
and I have my forklift certificate.
That is a very unique set of skills.
I love that. Well, even just driving up
to the market here at Good roots Northwest.
It was very different from me. I have
been too many food banks. In my life
to do different stories. 1 was in the
back of a semi trailer, and you kinda
go in and there were there were shelves
and very spa
selections. Driving up here was really different. I'm
not gonna give my, experience. Scott, this was
your first time coming to the market paint
our listeners a word picture. What did you
experience as you drove up? So... It's really
fascinating because I I was able to pinpoint
the feelings almost exactly.
When when... So I'm gonna... Well, I won't
say the name of the store. But I'm
your very basic
shopping on the main drag.
That's where we go for our Saturday morning
grocery runs.
And I always feel this very peculiar and
very specific feeling when I get to go
into a spot like a trader Joe's, Right.
I think our listeners probably have an understanding
of that feeling where you walk in and
go, oh I'm somewhere
special.
Oh, that you're gonna have the things. Right
and and walking into the market
very much felt that way. Very much felt
like I was walking into an extra special
store that I was super excited. To shop
at trying to figure out how how do
I get some points and make this happen?
Because
yeah, just that very cool feeling of, oh,
this is this is fancy I like it.
It is... It... It it was a special
kind of feeling coming in even from in
the parking lot when I drove up Pat
came up, and I rolled down my window,
and she said are you here to shop?
And I said, no, I'm here to do
a podcast and so I got to park
in a different lot, than, you know, the
more important folks that are coming into to
get their shopping done. And and walking in,
it's not just...
Spa shelves. There are full shelves. There's decor.
There's a vibe here that is pal,
and smile shopping cart. Kids. It was... It
was it's fantastic. Absolutely. And before we move
on, Pat actually mentioned something, She said, we
have volunteers here. From your school district and
we're here to do a story about actually
the connection between Good Roots Northwest and the
Pierce County Skill center, but our transition lab
students also fallen tier here, which I found
out Kelly you were telling me a little
bit about that. So what's that partnership like?
And what are our students get to do
when they come out here? Students from Bethel
Transition lab
arrive here in a group, and they often
work as cashier. They'll restock the shelves. They'll
do all the kinds of things that make
that experience that you just described
the 1 that where people feel special in
this beautiful spot. They make that a reality.
I love that our transition students get to
experience this place. And just being here for
the short time I have,
I've really enjoyed it Stacy before we started,
you were talking about the origins of this
idea of this Trader Joe's es
atmosphere. Tell us about that. The concept for
it was really born during the pandemic, which
when you think about you know, times of
crisis and great turmoil.
There is this window of opportunity
to rethink the norm. And I think that
that's
really the essence of the market we seize
that opportunity.
And instead of thinking about, well, how can
we make a food bank that works better.
For more people,
We started asking different questions about the system
itself. Like,
what might
it looked like
if no child in our community
ever knew that they had stepped foot in
a food bank.
And asking that different question and reverse engineering
back from that vision is really what the
market is. It is a place that...
Extends great dignity and respect and value.
I actually... When you do that and people
least expect it, in social services and human
services. I've noticed this very
interesting phenomenon that we're not considering human experience
in any of those spaces and places where
we're serving human beings.
But I am somebody from a high end
private sector business.
I'm where I worked in high end retail,
where the human experience was held with such
great regard that we had a different thermostat
for the cope department so that nobody would
get too hot why they're trying on cope
Wow.
And so it was curious to me to
step into the nonprofit sector and see that
those weren't considerations at all. And that even
somebody's
actual basic
biological humanity of what they choose to put
into their body was not considered as a
choice.
Right that anybody could have. You actually mentioned
that there are some food banks where you
drive up and they give you your bag
of food, and that's what you're gonna eat
for the week. Here It's very different. There
are shopping carts, kids go in the shopping
carts. And when they come around, they don't
just walk out, there's a pay system. Tie
tell us a little bit about that, there
is a a kind of a credit card
associated with this. In the design of the
market,
you know, I didn't have a lot of
experience in nonprofit sector or in the food
business, and I really knew, you know, about
retail.
And so
I've also found it so curious that, you
know, the food system in the Charity based
food system looks nothing like. The rest of
the food system that the public is using,
you know, for a hundred years. Grocery stores.
They actually look
polar opposite.
And so
really the market took and and leaned into
what a normalized
experience might look like. And for a customer
that's experiencing food and insecurity and visiting
food bank for the first time. It can
be tremendously trauma for a whole number of
reasons,
but then to feel lost within a system
and a space and not familiar with it,
becomes that much more, you know, compounding
trauma en zoos.
So what we opted to do was very
simply for very little money create a system
where people would have a membership card kind
of like at a wholesale membership right down
the street from here. Yeah where you present
your card at the door, you do your
shopping. You have your points budget on there
you shop through our selection of foods, choose
what you want, so no food waste happens.
You can meal prep for your family, Make
that it aligns culturally with what you would,
normally select at a grocery store. And then
you go to a checkout where you present
the door card 1 more time. The cashier
rings up, some of our bethel students might
be ringing up and being a cashier there.
Card and, you know, children are helping their
parent shop and put food. It's a normal
food, you know, experience.
And you can see how relaxed people are.
I think the true testament to that is
when you say that we have a vibe.
That vibe
is a bunch of people operating in a
space that not only they understand, but feel
deeply valued in that space. That's the vibe.
I love that. That's fantastic. There's canned food
on the shelves, There is fresh produce. There
are meals. That have been created by the
Pierce County Skill Center, Scott. That's why we
brought you in here, And this is really
a question for the table. How did this
connection happened between the Pier County Skill Center
and good roots Northwest. The connection between the
skill center and Good roots Northwest happened because,
of k body cough, or coffee roast down
in Sum Washington,
the person who operates the roast is a
member of the culinary arts advisory board.
And he was in an advisory board meeting
and brought to the attention of the instructors
in the culinary Arts program,
the... At the time, the Bonnie lake Food
Bank brought us, to the table.
Now I am a member of that culinary
advisory board, and that is what has cause
this partnership between good roots and the culinary
arts program. And the partnership is 1 where
we are able to provide ingredients for meals,
and then the students and the instructors
put together menus
where they create meals that we then provide
to customers here. And 1 of the things
that I absolutely adore about this. And as
I'm telling the story all over town.
I talk a lot about
the... And I... Have no real depth of
experience with food banks, volunteered
throughout my throughout my youth and different different
places, but I really don't have the depth
of knowledge. But what I... What you start
to learn very quickly is that there's not
much you can do with a 50 gallon
drum of oats. You roll it out and
run your families and say, hey, this is
what you're shopping for or a 40 pound
box of frozen chicken that's 1 big 40
pound block. And so,
1 of the first places that I became
aware of the partnership was a very large
box of frozen chicken.
And so our instructor said, hey, We'll teach
our kids how to butcher that. We'll teach
them how to break it down in into
primal cuts, and we'll figure out what we
can do with it. And and from there,
the the number of ingredients that we work
through over the course of the year. I
think the math that the instructors had at
the end of the school year
was somewhere over
8. 1800 pounds of chicken alone was saved
from going in the dump, and I know
we delivered somewhere close to 1500 meals of
all kinds of shapes and varieties and different
things. So
anything they get that they feel would work
for us. They bring to us, and we
put it in front of our amazing culinary
students and say, Alright. What you're gonna do
with it? And then they get to dive
in and create high level high level culinary
inventions and and ship them right back up
here. It's it... It couldn't be better. It
couldn't know. When you say high level, we're
talking Northwest, smoked, salmon chowder and the ingredients
for that, came from a really odd place.
Stacy or Kelly, you wanna tell us a
story behind that, Salmon? Sure. We are fortunate
enough to...
Come to the attention of 1 of the
local and wildlife life officers.
And on the
rare
occasion that he he finds someone fishing illegally,
and they have,
oh, say, for example, an 18 pound white
cent king salmon,
that they shouldn't have. He then con that
immediately puts it on ice and brings it
to us. And donate to the food bank.
He's also awesome because he cleans it, and
we are able to then move it on
a little bit easier.
When that happened last summer, I contacted
chefs ben and Eliza at the Culinary Arts
program
and asked if they might be able to
do something with it, And 1 of my
favorite things about working with both of them
is that they
will say it to me we'll figure it
out.
So we... Sent an 18 pound
frozen white salmon
to Ben Eliza and their students, and they
did figure it out. It's exactly what happened.
You know, All of this is so deeply
meaningful
to us here all the stakeholders of good
roots northwest.
We're so proud of this program,
and we share it, you know, widely
with the community that we interact with. There's
the beautiful community focus part of our customers
coming in and selecting a meal that was
made,
you know, for them. This is a home
cooked new Trisha meal that was made in
our community and that is the community food
story. But when you, you know, pull up
a little bit and look at A very
broken food system, you know, in the state
of Washington,
we're the sixth richest state in the nation,
and yet a we are 30 fourth in
securing food and waste 40 percent of the
food that comes into the food system.
So
we're wasting food at a phenomenal rate. And
if we were able to even have a
small market share of
prevention of that food waste from happening,
it could move the dial tremendously in feeding
more and more people.
What that comes down to is
functional programming that is really
sustainable within the community, and that's what this
is in a in a bigger way
you know, our work with the Department of
Ecology and the Pierce County sustainability and solid
waste. You know, the number 1 thing solid
waste in in landfills is food.
That's what's creating the methane that is hurting
our environment.
So when they see functional sustainable community level
programming
like this,
everybody's ears perk up because it is in
fact a solution for that. The 40 pound
block of chicken,
a truck driver once that gets refused into
the food system and it hits the I
5 corridor with nowhere to go, except for
the dump.
And so this is a way through community
logistics
to
completely change the narrative on that
and deliver that right back into the community
and create just a better last mile story,
And, you know, that is something that will
continue to develop and bring attention to
from our organization
on behalf of the skill center to the
state level. There's this beautiful aspect of it,
but it cannot be underestimated how sophisticated this
really is. Systems are complex.
I'm really glad that we have an educator
with the... Kelly Fremont is, like the Swiss
army knife of,
our operation in terms of,
really connecting these complex dots
and executing them in real time. Well... I'm
gonna interrupt and just say,
Stacey, Stacy she's being very, very humble there
by saying these things about all the rest
of the people at the table for sure,
but also,
1 of the things that I think makes
this work stacy a force of nature. When
I discuss her another partnership. That's what I
described. And she's moving Mountains to tie all
of these pieces together and have an understanding
about how they all inter link all the
way down to the students.
Down to the customers and having a deep
understanding of what the customers need as she
described, but these immense food systems that are
on a national scale
all the way down to the the the
young child at the counter who's going over
to get a Lollipop
because they're super excited just to be here.
And you pull all of that gigantic scope
down to that tiny little place,
and that takes that takes moving mountains. So...
Yeah. And that's been... I think 1 of
the fun parts for us at this skill
center watching this develop is we're just a
small piece in this mountain that they're moving
here. So... Fantastic. I have more questions, but
we are actually out of time for this
week so we're gonna continue this conversation next
week. Thank you all for joining us Kelly
Stacy and Scott. We'll be back at this
table in just 7 days time.
Great interview, Doug. Love learning all that stuff,
And what do we got planned for next
week over. Well, not only have they revolutionized
the food bank itself, but they are making
things easier for families that aren't able to
get to a food bank during the day,
those folks can now shop there online and
pick up their food at refrigerated lockers. We're
gonna talk more about that innovation and more
of the good things happening with our students
at the kind of skill center. Well, that
sounds fantastic. Join us back here in 7
days time.
Here's